


Camera, Camera

by jibrailis



Category: Smoke Series - Tanya Huff
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:53:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/pseuds/jibrailis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee's ready to come out, but an enchanted all-seeing camera might be ready to do the job for him first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camera, Camera

**Author's Note:**

  * For [torakowalski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/gifts).



Chester Bane tended to win bets the same way he won Parcheesi, fantasy hockey, and Most Likely to Get Out of Jail Free in high school — with intimidation, with his stare, and with his attitude, after which all competitors were tempted to lay down their cards and flee. This was, in essence, how he returned to the studios carrying a new Panavision Genesis camera.

"Full frame," he said. "35 mm width. 12.4-megapixel. 1:78:1 aspect ratio."

"C'est bon!" Sorge replied. Their DP looked delighted, their main camera having been dying a slow death ever since Tony accidentally used a Powershot on it during the faux zombie crisis (faux because they turned out to be possessed Vancouver wardrobe assistants in the end, with really good costume makeup).

"Look at Sorge handle that thing," Tony said, watching it all go down.

"It's a better quality camera, right?" Mason asked. "It'll bring out my best features even more?"

"Yes, Mason," Peter said wearily. "It'll bring out your sterling qualities. Now Sorge, you and Mouse can play with the new camera later. We've got this scene to finish."

The scene was currently one in which Raymond Dark was seducing a beautiful Southern belle, who may or may not be involved with a coven of ancient witches bent on destroying the world. Maria, the actress playing said Southern belle, lounged on a chaise on the sound stage and looked bored in between takes, even when Mason tried to flirt with her — Tony was a fan of her already.

Sorge reluctantly stopped making chic Continental love to the new camera.

They all went back to work. Later on, they would be interrupted again, not by the divine presence of their boss, or by Mason's tendencies of being an _artiste_ , but by the fire alarm, which would be set off from craft services, and which would involve a poorly baked casserole, a half-naked new temp, and too much glitter eyeshadow. Nothing infernal there, no demons or shadowlords, just delays in shooting and disgruntled cast and crew all around. Yet another day at _Darkest Night_.

 

* * *

 

Even before the whole incident with the camera started happening, there was Lee.

Life with Lee was... okay, first Tony had to wrap his head around those words individually. Life. With. Lee. And then try, very slowly and carefully to put them together. LifewithLee. Because there was actually a life with Lee now, where life wasn't limited to useless pining and carefully averted gazes around set. That was kind of novel, yeah, but Tony was getting used to it. Two years and three months later, _Darkest Night_ was miraculously on its fourth season as the highest rated vampire detective show in syndication, and Lee was still climbing into Tony's bed at night, smiling like he wanted to be there.

That was pretty damn magical in and of itself.

They had basically moved in together, in a single-bedroom Burnaby apartment about two blocks from where Tony's old (and unforgivably cramped) apartment was. Tony had been waiting for the move with a sort of frenetic nervousness, wondering how to bring it up, because he was already spending all his spare time at Lee's or vice versa, and usually they went home together and made dinner, so it wasn't really practical for one of them to keep paying rent for an apartment they barely used anymore. That was how he planned to explain it, couching it in financial terms. Except Lee, capable of surprising Tony every single day, had finished cleaning the dishes one evening and said, "Hey, so I'm going to move in."

"What?" Tony had asked stupidly.

"Not here, obviously," Lee had said. "And I don't think my apartment's big enough either. But we should look for a new place." And then he went and washed his soap-sudded hands like he hadn't just nailed Tony in the head with a two by four.

(Though he had, earlier, nailed him in other, more sexy ways. Tony adored Lee, he really did).

So that was how they moved in together, and that was how the entire cast and crew basically found out about them, because there was no easy way to explain it and roommates just sounded sad. Most people knew already, or had guessed, because Tony wasn't always good at being subtle and Lee, once he got over the whole heterosexual freakout, was prone to excessively determined displays of _see how cool I am with my boyfriend? Who has a dick? Like me?_

Mason was the only one who was shocked, really. But then Amy had explained to him that as the last remaining straight star of the show, he was bound to get double the fan mail. So Mason was happy in the end.

"Hey," Lee said, stretching out on the couch the day after CB brought in the new camera. Tony was watching _Samurai Pizza Cats_ and trying to shovel cashews into his mouth — one of the nice parts of being in an actual relationship with Lee was that he could afford to look like a loser, and Lee probably wouldn't leave him for it, because being cool and sultry and wizardly at all times was not exactly in Tony's range of capacities.

Lee kicked his feet onto Tony's lap and dropped his copy of _Entertainment Weekly_ on the carpet. "Hey," he said again, poking Tony.

"Fdsgh?" Tony asked.

"I was thinking," Lee said. "We should come out. To everyone, I mean. To the press."

"Fggsah," Tony said.

"I think I'm ready for it," Lee went on obliviously. "I know I was sort of, uh, skittish in the beginning, but I've settled into this pretty well, haven't I?" He peered at Tony, and then his green eyes widened. "Are you _choking_?"

Tony swallowed hard, and let Lee pound him on the back for a while. "Don't surprise me like that!" Tony gasped when the cashews had finally gone down. "Big news should wait until _after_ I've got stuff in my mouth."

"So I guess it was pretty considerate of me not to say it when you were blowing me this morning," Lee said.

Tony glared at him. "I hate you."

Lee grinned at him, reckless. "No, you liiiike me. You want to tell the media all about the dirty things you do to me. How about it, Tony? Want to be trashy tabloid news of the day?" He leaned forward and stroked Tony's knee with his fingers. Tony shivered. "I mean it," Lee said, lowering his voice. "I'm sick of not being able to take you as my date to parties. I'm sick of having to tell reporters that I'm single, because it's a lie, and I'm fucking sick of lying."

"Lee," Tony said slowly, "you don't have to do this. Just because you think I might want to. I _do_ , it's not like being your dirty little secret is my one great life ambition, but I get why we have to. So I don't mind it."

But oops, that wasn't the right thing to say, because that only made Lee get that expression he got whenever he joined Tony on the month's new magical disaster. The expression that said _I am not your damsel in distress_. The expression that said _I can take on the big guns too_. The expression that said _you're not going to talk me out of this, so don't even try_.

It was, coincidentally enough, the same expression Lee got when Tony tried to switch their toilet paper brands.

So Tony shrugged. "If you want to, then you want to. I'm cool with whatever. You should think about it some more though."

Lee settled back into the couch and folded his arms over his chest. Tony had the sudden spreading realization that this was sink or swim here, that Lee really meant it. Which was great and all, because yay for Lee embracing his bisexuality, yay for Lee having irrepressible feelings for Tony.

Tony tried to smile. He was only about fifty percent successful.

Lee narrowed his eyes.

"Are you hungry?" Tony said loudly. "Let's order pizza."

 

* * *

 

"Candy wrapper for your thoughts?" Amy asked.

"Isn't it supposed to be a penny?" Tony said, looking up from the location paperwork he was filling out for Peter. "I'm pretty sure my thoughts are worth at least a penny."

"I'm pretty sure they're not, but a candy wrapper's all I've got on me." She tossed it at him. It bounced off his forehead. "You look glum, grasshopper. The supernatural getting you down?"

Tony sighed and rolled back in his chair. Of course, this being CB Productions and this being the production office, rolling back meant immediately hitting the wall. "I'm great," he said.

"Liar," Amy accused. "Is this about Lee? What am I saying? _Of course_ it's about Lee. You only ever get that look on your face when it's Lee-related."

Tony's hands flew to his cheeks. "What look?" he demanded.

"Sort of like where you're a lovesick puppy, sort of like you're trying to solve the world's hardest math problem." Amy swirled around to face him properly. She brightened. "Does this involve kinks? Is Lee being suddenly kinky?"

"What?" Tony said.

"I get that vibe off him sometimes, you know. The bike. The jacket. The nipple ring."

"Creepy," Tony said. "You don't see me asking you about Jack, do you?"

"Oh, Jack's kinks are really very—"

"TMI!" Tony said.

Amy looked disappointed. "Well, if we're not going to discuss the relative hotness of our very hot boyfriends, what _are_ we going to talk about?"

"I—"

The phone rang. "Hold on a sec," Amy said, grabbing the phone. "CB Productions," she said. "No, Rachel's out of the office. I can leave a message for you if you'd like." She fumbled for a notepad and started scribbling on it. "Okay, thanks, bye." She hung up, and then pointed a finger at Tony imperiously. "No more interruptions. Spill."

"Lee wants to come out," Tony said in a rush.

"But we already all know," Amy started to say, and then it dawned on her. " _Oh_ ," she said. "Oh! You mean, like, _come out_ , come out. To Kevin Groves and everyone."

"Ew, did you really have to bring Kevin Groves into it?" Tony said.

"But that's what you mean, right?"

Tony ducked his head. "Yeah."

She studied him critically. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"It's fantastic," Tony said. "I'm just worried that it'll... but never mind. We should get back to work." He started to swivel back to his paperwork, but Amy shot out and grabbed his shoulder, jerking him away.

"Don't you dare," she said. "You will talk, and I will listen, and then we might go out for girly drinks afterwards. Capiche?"

Tony winced. She had a powerful grip. "It'll change things," he said quickly. "It might hurt his career. People might not invite him to events anymore. I'll have to meet his family. He might have to hire a publicist. I'll have to hide my magic even more." He ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up on end. "Fuck. I know we're just a third-rate syndicated show, but this is the sort of gossip that people care about, and I don't want — I'm _happy_ with the way things are now." _What if it makes us look at each other differently?_ was what he didn't say, thankfully, because that would have been too pathetic. It didn't mean it wasn't _true_ though. There were a hell of a lot people Lee could get with that wouldn't bring him as much trouble as Tony. Some of them had facial hair, even.

Amy continued to stare at him.

"Stop that," Tony said.

"Drinks," she said firmly. "Lots and lots of drinks."

 

* * *

 

"I am not hung over," Tony declared.

"Sure," Lee said, catching Tony near the craft services truck before he went and faced wardrobe. Tony was trying to steal as many Boston cream doughnuts as he possibly could from the rest of the crew.

"Why are you laughing?" Tony asked.

"You can banish demons and close portals to other worlds, but you can't say no to another drink with Amy?" Lee's teeth were very white when he laughed.

"Shut up," Tony said miserably.

Lee leaned in close to Tony's space. Karen glanced at them from across the table, but then she glanced away, uninterested.

"So, don't think I haven't forgotten about what we talked about," Lee said pleasantly. "You can run away from it, but I'll just track you down."

"I don't know," Tony said. "I can run pretty far."

"Want to bet?" Lee said, and his voice made Tony's spine go all shuddery. Tony clutched his doughnuts and his virtue even closer. "I did track in high school."

"Hello, _wizard_ ," Tony murmured, but Lee was already pulling away and sauntering off in the direction of wardrobe, with a wink at Karen. Asshole.

Over by the sound stage, Sorge was explaining the technical details of the new camera to Peter. "Our production values have just quadrupled," Peter said dryly.

"We can now see Mason's pores in high definition detail," Adam added, and they laughed, but only after they looked around to make sure Mason wasn't lingering around with his batlike hearing.

"Go fetch me a cappuccino," Peter told Tony.

"Hello, _trainee assistant director_ , not P.A," Tony said, but it was, they knew, a token protest. He trotted off to find that cappuccino, or at the very least, find someone else to foist the errand upon. When he returned, coffee in hand, Sorge and Mouse were booting up the new camera and both Mason and Lee were out of wardrobe, standing on the sound stage while Sharyl applied last minute powder. Mouse punched the buttons on the camera, and then his face fell.

"What's the problem?" Peter asked.

"It's not working," Mouse said. "Won't turn on."

"What are you talking about?" Sorge said. "Let me see that. _Vite, vite_." He hurried over and took a look at the camera. "Mouse is right," he said, aggrieved. "What is the matter with this? It was working fine yesterday. Did someone tamper with it?"

"Why is everyone looking at me?" Tony asked.

"Your... energies," Sorge said, with the sort of distaste one reserved for cockroaches and people who drove too slowly on the TransCanada.

"My energies have nothing to do with this," Tony said. And then, because he was brave and also suicidal, he pointed out what everybody was thinking. "Who knew where CB got this thing?"

Peter sighed. "We don't have time to play tech support. Tony, go fetch the old Arriflex camera. We'll just have to make do for today."

"Make it fast," Mason said. "My makeup is melting underneath these lights."

Lee sat down on Raymond Dark's desk, with his legs spread and his posture casual, waiting for Tony's return. When Tony did return, he gave Lee another death glare, because Lee looked like sex on a preppy James Taylor Grant stick, just waiting to be debauched over that desk, and Lee knew it. Lee grinned before Mouse got the old camera set up and they started filming again.

It was Tony's job to disassemble the new Panavision from its mount and put it back into its wheeled case. It was heavy, but since no one was watching (and practically everybody on set knew about his wizard thing as much as his gay-with-Lee thing), he used Come to Me more than once. "Big expensive piece of junk," he said to the camera.

Then he paused, because that — was that a whirring sound he just heard?

Nah, he decided. It was the booze from last night talking.

 

* * *

 

It turned out it wasn't the booze from last night talking.

"TONY," Peter shouted, and Tony recognized that tone of voice enough to drop his conversation with Everett right there and go sprinting.

"You called?" he said, showing up panting.

Peter was sitting at the computers, with the Panavision digital film hooked up to it. He was watching the video and slowly turning redder and redder. Adam was standing beside him, his blocky shoulders blotting out Tony's view, but when Adam turned around, he looked horrified and embarrassed.

"What's going on?" Tony asked, starting to feel a little terrified. "Hey, but we got the camera working again. That's good news."

"Don't talk to me like that," Peter said. "You are this close to being fired."

"Huh?" Tony asked. Adam moved aside and let Tony see what was playing on the computer, and Tony felt his entire body go cold because _what the fuck_ , that was him and Lee in the footage. Him and Lee on the couch in their apartment, with Tony straddling Lee and kissing him wetly while he moved on Lee's lap. They were both naked, and Lee's fingers were gripping Tony's hips, and Lee was making the most obscene moaning sounds — Tony could hear it even though Peter had a death grip control on the volume slider.

"Shit," Tony said.

"Shit is right," Peter said furiously. "Did you just — are you using this camera to film _sex videos_?"

"No!" Tony said. He rushed forward. "Can we please, we can — can we turn that off?"

Peter hit the stop button, thank god, but his face was still somewhere in the kingdom of apoplexy. "Tony, I've put up with a lot of weird crap from you these past few years, but this is unbelievable. This is just a professional violation in every sense of that word."

"I didn't do it!" Tony said. He raised his hands, feeling the blush take over his face, because um, okay, the screen just happened to freeze on a particularly good view of Lee's cock. "I know what it looks like, but I swear it wasn't me! Look, that's our apartment. How would I manage to get the camera, which is huge, to our apartment? How could I even smuggle that out of the studio?"

"He does have a point," said Adam.

"So this is a magic thing," Peter said.

"It has to be," Tony said. "Or ah, Mouse is sneaking home with us to film softcore porn, _which I don't want to think about_." He looked at the computer screen and resisted the urge to cover his eyes in trauma. "Is there other footage? Is it just me and Lee?"

"We haven't checked yet," Peter said grimly. But he fast forwarded the footage, and suddenly Lee and Tony were replaced by Peter wrapping his arms around a petite blonde woman. Peter's mouth fell open. He skipped another even more, and Peter and the woman were gone, and now they were looking at Mason sitting alone in his dressing room, watching old clips of himself on network TV and looking deeply unhappy.

"That's my wife," Peter said. "That's our home. How did it—"

"Magic thing," Tony supplied.

"That's your area of expertise then," Peter said. "You get on it, you take care of this."

 

* * *

 

Tony opened Arra's laptop and looked for a file that said Camera, Perverted.

Nada.

Well, it wasn't like he thought he was going to be successful. He tried looking for other file names: Camera, Haunted; Electrical Equipment, Incredibly Invasive; How To Stop Technology From Spying On Your Sex Life. No hits for any of them.

He went to the storage room where they kept the cameras and sat with the Panavision, examining it from every angle. It didn't _look_ haunted or magical, but then again, that bagel last month hadn't looked like it was full of toxic mold either — surprise surprise. Tony knew a fair bit about cameras. You had to, if you wanted to be a director one day. But he wasn't an expert on them the way Mouse or Sorge were, and he was half torn between wanting to take the Panavision apart, and worrying that he would permanently break it and CB would flay his skin and mount it on the wall as a trophy.

He set up Reveal Magic as a spell. He used chalk to write the runes around the mounted camera.. When he finished, he spoke the words, and the runes all flared to life like Las Vegas billboards. So there definitely was magic involved, only Tony wasn't sure what.

He called Leah.

"So you're a magical handmaiden and you work in show business," he said. "Have you ever heard of a camera that films you, even when you're off set? Like, filmed you in moments it wasn't supposed to? Stalker camera type thing?"

"Like paparazzi?" Leah asked curiously.

"Except there's no human involved," Tony said.

"Never heard of anything like that," Leah said, and Tony wanted to cringe, because if Leah in her thousands of years of experience had never heard of anything, that meant even more of a hassle for Tony, and probably hours of research at the library. "But then again, this type of equipment has only been around for the past few decades. What's the camera filming?"

"You know, this and that," Tony said airily. "Shots of us at home, shots of us in our dressing rooms—"

"Sex videos?" Leah asked.

"It figures you'd be interested in that," Tony said.

"So that's a yes then," she said. "Hmm, well, I can always come by and take a look."

Tony generally didn't like it when Leah dropped by set, because she had the tendency to make everything grind to a halt and send every red-blooded male off his orbit, but he figured this time it was necessary. Peter and everyone could deal with their erections.

"It doesn't turn on when I try to turn it on," Tony explained when Leah finally arrived. "See? I press the power button and nothing happens. It makes this whirring noise sometimes, and the lights here flash, but the screen hook-up? It's blank."

"Right," said Leah.

"But it's obviously filming something," Tony said. He waved his hand in front of the camera. "Maybe it can see through walls?"

"You said it filmed you and Lee in your apartment. Those are a lot of walls between here and there," said Leah.

"Yeah, I guess," Tony said.

"It's more likely interdimensional," Leah said matter-of-factly. "Like the kind of magic your incompetent teacher Arra used. People can travel from Point A to Point B by going through metaphysical pathways in between. So why can't a camera's field of vision?"

"Because that just sounds whacked out," Tony said. "But since whacked out is basically the theme song of my life, you're probably right. The question is: how do we _stop_ it?"

"We could destroy it," Leah mused.

"As if CB will let us." Tony paused. "Plus it's a really nice camera. If we can get this Peeping Tom spell off it, we could really use it on set."

"If it's a spell, maybe. If it's demon or spirit possession, that might be harder," she said. She slid him a sly look, her lips quirking upwards. "So, sex videos. I was right about that, wasn't I? I feel strangely proud. Just a few seasons ago, the two of you were bumbling around like gorillas, barely even able to talk to each other."

"We talked fine," Tony insisted.

Leah arched an eyebrow.

"Why am I the only person who can't do that?" Tony wondered.

 

* * *

 

It turned out Tony couldn't even wipe the footage off the record. The camera wouldn't let him. The camera wasn't responding to any sort of command, either on its mount or when connected to the computer. It just stayed blank, but every hour or so Tony would check its feed and there would be new footage, impossible footage, footage of Amy and Zev bent over in a private conversation, footage of Everett smoothing his hair in front of his own mirror, footage of Saleen at home sick in bed with the flu.

Tony felt like the worst sort of voyeur, and he tried not to watch any of it, even if it was interesting.

He also felt annoyed that none of the other footage was as bad as him and Lee having sex — though, on the flip side, it turned out that he and Lee were probably getting it more often than most of their coworkers, which made Tony feel smug for about three minutes before he remembered, _sentient camera watching my every move_.

"You," he said to the silent camera, "are a big expensive _stalker_."

He still had errands to run as TAD, so he did those for Peter, and then he returned to the camera where he plied it with spell after spell. He threw every banishing spell he knew at it, every anti-magic spell, every nullifying enchantment. He wouldn't ever tell if it worked, but he would be hopeful — and then he would return in another half hour to find new footage, this time of CB on the phone with his daughters' principal, discussing how Ashley had dumped a pot of paint over another classmate's head.

He wondered — since the camera had some kind of scrying magic placed on it, if he could use it like a crystal ball. He tried putting his hands on it and saying, "Show me Lee, right now." But the camera didn't respond. Not at first.

It responded three hours later when it showed him footage of Lee going over his lines in his dressing room, half naked in between costumes.

"Not helpful," Tony said.

"Any luck?" Peter asked him on set later.

"No," Tony admitted. "It's not responding to any of my spells."

"Just figure something out," Peter said. "I hate to explain to CB why we aren't using his latest toy, and you know he won't take magical interferences as a legitimate excuse."

Another hour later, Tony popped in to say, "I've found out that I can transfer the footage _off_ the computer. And I can destroy it when it's transferred. But I still can't edit or modify the original file."

"That's helpful," Peter said. "By which I mean it's a tremendous waste of our time. Why would we ever want copies of that footage?"

"I'm going to have to stay late tonight, aren't I?" Tony asked, looking at his watch. Around them, the rest of the crew was starting to wrap up. Mason was already trying to pry his fangs out of his mouth.

"What do you think?" Peter replied.

 

* * *

 

"Sorry, I'm coming home late tonight because I need to fix this camera, which is watching us even when we don't want it to," Tony said. "And god, I hate how that is actually an excuse that makes sense."

"Too much sense," Lee said. "You want me to save dinner for you?"

"Yeah, thanks," Tony said.

Lee looked around, at the camera, at the computer, at Tony's frazzled expression. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" Lee asked, and fuck, Tony loved him so much sometimes it was like being thrown into the ocean and told to swim to shore — he didn't know how he could stand it, it was just so overwhelming.

"What, and watch me try to beat a piece of equipment into submission?" Tony quipped. "You'd be bored in ten minutes. No, go home and work out and have dinner. I'll see you later." He grabbed Lee by his leather jacket, pulling him in for a kiss. Lee went with him easily, his mouth warm and tasting like mints.

"I'll start thinking about what to say to the press," Lee said. He looked more closely at Tony's face, and Tony was a terrible actor, not that Lee couldn't read him pretty easily anyway. "It won't change us," Lee said.

"I know," Tony said, not very convincingly.

"It _won't_ ," Lee insisted.

"Lee," Tony said, "people watching us all the time — that's tough to live with."

"No, really, tell me more about it," Lee said in a perfect deadpan.

"Okay, I deserved that," Tony said. He kissed Lee again, just because it was impossible not to touch Lee now that he could. His lips trailed along Lee's jaw, down the hollow of his neck. Then he pushed Lee away gently. "Home," he said, and tried not to beam stupidly at how awesome that sounded — home. "I'll get this settled, and then I'll meet you there."

"Don't blow anything up," Lee said.

Tony's laughter was short and amused. "It's tempting," he said. "Extremely tempting."

He didn't blow up the camera though. He spent another four hours with it, methodically going through all the spells in Arra's laptop that seemed like it might work — and then another hour on the phone with Henry, who was currently at the Romance Writers of America conference in Anaheim, but who could spare a few minutes to offer his expertise on the subject of sentient video cameras. Which was to say, very little. "If the magic is so deeply embedded into the camera that no spell will draw it out," Henry said, "your best option might be just to destroy it."

"That's what I'm beginning to think," Tony said. "It's not going to make anybody happy."

That was the million dollar question, he thought as he packed up at ten o'clock, deciding to give the whole thing a rest for tonight. All of this magic, and it was pretty damn amazing, no doubt about it. Not having to get up to reach the remote or a bag of chips? Tony would happily subscribe to the Wizards R Us Magazine just for that alone. But this other stuff, this creepy-candid-camera stuff, this demons-and-zombies-and-pixies stuff — magic was the subscription that kept on getting pricier and pricier, the sort of magazine that ended up having more ad room than articles.

 _I need to do something fun with my powers soon_ , Tony thought. _I need to, like, make it rain puppies. Or dispel rush hour traffic._

Or go home and crawl into bed with Lee. That was sounding good too.

 

* * *

 

Four in the morning, and his cell phone was ringing.

Lee mumbled into his pillow and slapped Tony on the hip. "I think it's yours," he slurred, and Tony groaned, smushing Lee in his attempt to crawl over and grab his phone from the nightstand.

"Hello?" he said groggily.

"Don't freak out," said Amy, "but there's a sex video of you and Lee on the internet."

Tony promptly freaked out. He lurched out of bed in a tumble of blankets and sheets, making Lee yelp in Tony's mad dash to his laptop, which he yanked onto his lap and booted with the sort of panic normally reserved for end of the world scenarios. "Link," he said, his voice sounding funny, and Amy replied that she had already sent it in an email to him, so Tony opened that email and c/ped the link in.

"Fuck," he said under his breath when he pressed play on Megavideo, because he definitely knew that footage: it was him and Lee on the couch, him riding Lee, the same footage transfered off from the camera.

"Tony? What's wrong?" Lee asked from the bed, and Tony flailed as he tried to close the laptop's lid. But Lee was already coming over and peering over his shoulder.

"Is that—"

"Remember when I mentioned the camera was filming things it shouldn't be?" Tony said, high-pitched. "Um, yeah, so apparently one of those things was you and me. Uh. As you can see. I didn't do it," he added in a desperate rush, while inside a part of him curled up and thought _shit, Lee is going to be so mad_.

Lee turned pale as he watched. "We need to get this off the internet," he said.

Tony put Amy on speakerphone. She said, "I've already emailed Megavideo and told them to take it down, They haven't replied yet."

"This is bad," Lee said.

Tony closed his eyes and made a strangled noise. He tried not to look at Lee, because he didn't want to see Lee's expression. He didn't want to see what would be there — anger, fear, disappointment. It wasn't Tony's fault, Lee had to understand that, but this was one more reminder that being involved with Tony was being involved with scenarios that were big and bad and just plain _awkward_.

"I'll take care of this," Tony said without opening his eyes. "I promise. I'll make sure this goes away."

Lee didn't say anything. When Tony opened his eyes, Lee was already on the other side of the room, dialing someone on his cell phone — his agency? His mother? Tony had no idea. He couldn't read the line of Lee's shoulders, except that they were tight. Lee wasn't happy. Well, duh. Who would be happy about their private life uploaded to the internet?

Tony turned to the screen again, to where the video had paused on an image of him leaning forward on Lee's lap, kissing him. Maybe, he thought hopefully, maybe he was blocking too much of Lee for anybody to see Lee's face.

Then he looked down at the comments. No such luck.

`JAMES TAYLOR GRANT IS GAY? OMG` wrote nightwalker05.

Tony buried his face in his hands. Then he squared his shoulders and started throwing on his clothes. He was going to the studio right now, and he was going to get destructive with some very fancy equipment _immediately_.

 

* * *

 

Lesson learned: the camera was so powerful that even a Powershot, which could vanquish demons, couldn't destroy it.

An old-fashioned baseball bat from the prop department didn't do the trick either.

"What are you doing?" Adam yelled when he came in.

"This thing is evil!" Tony said. "And I know I sound like a hysterical Victorian heroine right now, but I mean it!" He took another swing at the camera, and Adam threw himself at him, trying to pry him off. "It just uploaded its footage to the internet! With meticulously perfect tags!"

"You can't just destroy good equipment, even if it's magically malevolent!" Adam said.

"I am trying to save us," Tony said.

"You have lost your mind," said Adam.

"That could very possibly be true," Tony said. He lowered the baseball bat. Adam took it from him warily. "It doesn't matter anyway. Nothing can destroy this camera. Not magic, not physical impact. It's like god-camera. It's like that thing which sees everything, the pan — the pan — you know what I'm talking about, right?"

"The Panopticon?" asked Adam, who had studied philosophy at university.

"Yeah," said Tony. "Except scarily internet savvy."

 

* * *

 

He avoided Lee for the rest of the day, even though they were shooting an episode that focused on James Taylor Grand's tragic past. Lee showed up for wardrobe, looking tired and stressed, and he didn't quite meet Tony's eyes when they caught sight of each other in the hallway between wardrobe and the stairs leading to FX in the basement — or maybe Tony didn't meet Lee's eyes, it was hard to tell.

 _I'm sorry_ , Tony wanted to say. _I know you wanted to come out, but not like this_.

 _I'm sorry_ , Tony wanted to say. _This is what happens when you're involved with me_.

"Self-hating, much?" he said to himself. It didn't matter, normally. Lee seemed cool with the wizard business, or as cool as anybody could be when they had a boyfriend who kept pickled newt eggs in the fridge and had an ex who was a romance novelist and vampire who dropped in at absurd hours. But Lee had known it was a part of being with Tony, and so it'd never been a big issue, except in those rare instances when it was. When the zombies came, or when another ghost possessed Lee, suddenly Tony would remember, _It's because of me_.

Wizards affected the energies around them. The big bads targeted Lee. Lee was like a focal point for all things supernatural and mischievous — and now there was video of him coming all over the internet, great.

How was Lee going to explain that to his mom? How was Tony ever going to be able to look Mrs. Nicholas in the eye ever again? He was already going into withdrawal pondering the long, dark winter that would be no more fresh-baked ginger pumpkin cookies.

 _I am a corrupting influence on your son_ , Tony thought, nursing an Advil as he stared at the camera, trying to destroy it with the force of his hatred when everything else had failed. _I have turned Lee into Paris Hilton_.

Zev came and tracked him down. "So Amy got the video removed," he said gently, and Tony felt that familiar shame and regret, because Zev was just so _good_ , and Tony was the sort of guy who got their actor boyfriend ousted in the worst way possible.

As if Zev knew what he was thinking, he tapped Tony on the forehead. "Not your fault," he said. "You didn't bring the camera here. CB did."

"But it's probably reacting to me the most because I'm a wizard," Tony said. "That's why it's focusing so much more on me and the people I'm involved with. I'm like the star of its dirty little show."

"Not your fault," Zev said again. "Here, have a sandwich."

"Thanks," Tony said. He ate the sandwich and then asked, "So how bad is it? You can tell me honestly."

"It's not terrible," Zev said. "What? It's not. Lee is a B-list actor on a Canadian show, so we've only got a few reporters who've been calling. Kevin Groves is staking out the parking lot, but Jennifer's keeping him out. There were some mentions on Twitter, one on TMZ, and one on ONTD, but for the most part, the excitement seems to be from the _Darkest Night_ bloggers. Did you know there's kind of a big following for it on Livejournal?"

"I never read the fanfiction," Tony said.

"Really? It's pretty good sometimes," Zev said. "The writers have a lot of, ah, imagination."

"I stopped at the tentacle bondage," Tony said. "In fiction and in real life."

"That's probably for the best," Zev said. "So yeah, in conclusion, the video is down but there are copies still circulating on torrents, so you're not going to be able to wipe it under the rug. But stop being so melodramatic. It's not the end of the world."

"I know it's not," Tony said. "I've been through worse. It's just... embarrassing, you know?"

"You should probably talk to Lee."

"I know that." Tony rubbed his face. "But right now my first priority is to stop this camera from doing any more damage. I'll deal with everything else after. Including — including Lee." He paused for a moment, and then said, "I got an idea. Remember that wormhole to another dimension that we found last year? What if we go drop the camera through it?"

"We're on the clock right now," Zev said doubtfully.

"Please?" Tony said. "We can take your car."

"Since you asked so nicely," Zev said. "And because there are 40,000 hits to a picture of your ass."

"That's _low_ ," Tony said.

"It's a nice ass," Zev said amiably, and went to get his keys.

 

* * *

 

"All right," Tony said half an hour later. "Evil sex-crazed _bouncing_ camera. Who would have thought?"

 

* * *

 

Lee was waiting for him by the office when he returned. Zev took one look at him and said, "I'll be in the sound studio," while Amy made fluttering motions with her hands and only left because Zev dragged her away, giving Tony and Lee some privacy among the ringing phones.

"So," Tony began.

"So," said Lee.

Tony stuck his hands in his pockets. "You're not breaking up with me over this, right?"

"What? Of course not," said Lee. "Did you think I was?"

"Not really," Tony said, "but I have may have made up several fantasies where you cruelly rejected me and left me sobbing and pregnant on the side of the road."

"Freak," said Lee, but he stepped forward. Tony looked up into his eyes; Lee looked very serious but not particularly angry. "You didn't have anything to do with the video. It was all the camera, right? So stop worrying."

"It's hard to stop worrying," Tony said, "when the camera keeps following me around like herpes."

Lee pulled a face, and then he looked like he wanted to say something, but because they were two inarticulate guys who had barely managed to get together in the first place, neither of them were founts of eloquence.

"Uh," said Lee.

"Um," said Tony.

"I think—" said Lee.

"You don't have to—" said Tony.

"We were going to do this anyway," Lee said, interrupting Tony by pressing his finger against Tony's lips and shushing him. Tony tried to speak, but Lee pushed him against the wall, which made Tony's knees melt. Lee crowded against him, and said, "I didn't imagine it would be like this, with, uh, a sex tape — that might have been more dramatic than I really wanted. But it's done. It happened. Whatever."

"Whatever," Tony echoed, and then Lee smiled at him, tentative but happy, and Tony thought, _Ask whatever you want of me, and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to get it for you_.

"Yeah," Lee said, and that was that, that was their big existential crisis settled. Lee kissed Tony softly, and when Tony wriggled his hips and made it apparent that he was ready for a lot more, Lee kissed him harder, holding him against the wall with one knee between Tony's legs. Tony did not normally consider himself a horndog who had sex in the middle of the office, in the middle of the day, but when Lee Nicholas was trying to seduce you against a wall, who were you to say no?

This was potentially a problem. Lee distracted Tony. It hadn't led to anything too awful yet, but in the future civilizations would probably fall and aliens would probably take over the earth, all because Lee Nicholas was trying to get his hand into Tony's pants.

"Wait," Tony gasped. "This is such a bad idea. Don't you think — ah, um — don't you think we've had enough of sex in public places?" His voice went skewed on the last syllable as Lee rubbed his hand over Tony's groin.

"I don't know," Lee grinned. "It kind of turned me on."

"You _pervert_."

"Like you don't count, with your obsession with—"

"Bite me," Tony said, and Lee was all too happy to do just that.

"I don't care," Lee said later, when he was kneeling between Tony's legs, doing some incredibly unprofessional things to him, and Tony was trying to muffle his moans into his fist. "I mean it," Lee said, cheeks flushed. "I don't know care how they know. You could dress up in a teddy bear suit and whip me in public—"

"That's the most disturbing thing you've ever said," Tony cut in.

"—and I wouldn't care," Lee finished. "Don't you get it? You're stuck with me. Like the camera. I'm your herpes."

It was the most romantic and terrible statement anybody had ever made. Tony came anyway, helplessly.

"Plus," Lee said, licking Tony's come off his fingers, "if we end up jobless and rejected by society at large, we can always become porn stars."

"That's not your best example of logical thinking," Tony said sleepily. "It's a good thing you're so hot."

"Hey," said Lee.

"Kiss me now, pretty boy," Tony said, waggling his eyebrows. Lee rose up from his knees, and Tony wrapped his arms around his neck, and they kissed sloppily, perfectly.

 

* * *

 

They went home after work, and they had sex on the couch for kicks, and then they had sex on the kitchen table, and then another round of sex in bed. Because Lee had a lot of god-given stamina and Tony was head over heels for Lee. He couldn't think of anything he would rather do than have his tongue on Lee's piercings, except maybe have his tongue on Lee's cock.

They collapsed exhausted at around two in the morning, and at three in the morning Tony sat up straight in bed and said, "I got it!"

"Is there another sex video?" Lee mumbled. "Is it a good one?"

"No, no—"

"So it's a bad one?" Lee asked, cracking open an eye and looking gorgeous and wrecked on their cotton blue sheets. There were bruises on his thighs, and a streak of dried semen on his bare chest, right under his nipple.

Tony started tugging on his jeans from where they'd thrown them on the floor. "There's no new sex video. I think. I hope. But I'm pretty sure I know how to nullify the camera."

Lee sat up. "How?"

"It's like what Adam said, the Panopticon," Tony said hurriedly. "The eye that sees everything and can record anything. Except for one thing. There's one thing it can't possibly see or record."

"And what's that?" Lee asked.

"Itself," Tony said triumphantly. "It's worth a shot, right? If we can get the camera to record itself, that's like, a magical black hole right there. That's matter and antimatter. Kaboom kaboom. That's bound to make something happen." He grabbed his coat. "I'll see you in a couple of hours. Go back to sleep."

"The hell with that," Lee said, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. "I'm coming with you."

It was cold and chilly, and they stopped by a 7-Eleven for some tasteless coffee on their way to CB Productions. Tony used his special TAD pass card to unlock the studios and then the camera room, and Lee watched him as he started setting up. "How exactly are you going to get it to record itself?" Lee asked. "Mirrors?"

"Pretty much," Tony said. He went to the costuming department and dragged one of their full-length mirrors over. Lee helped him, and they positioned it in front of the camera.

Tony hit the power button.

As usual, there was no response. It was if the camera was broken. But if Tony pressed his ear against the slick black plastic, he could make out the very faint sound of whirring.

"So now we wait," Tony said. "This is the boring part. We don't need to stick around. Want to go get more coffee?"

"Yes," Lee said gratefully.

They went and got coffee. The Second Cup on McClintock Street was just starting to open, and Lee and Tony stood in front of its door like a pair of helpless penguins until the baristas came out and flipped the sign from closed to open. So they found a booth, drank their coffee, chatted idly, checked their RSS feeds ("look, we got a mention on Perez, he says he doesn't know what the fuck _Darkest Night_ is, but he knows hot guys when he sees them," said Lee, sounding ridiculously pleased.) Then, when it was a more reasonable hour, they returned to the studio.

"There was a bang!" Amy said, running up to them. "When I got in a few minutes ago. There was a bang, and then the camera started to smoke and melt."

Tony smirked. "Bingo."

"You're a genius," Lee laughed.

Tony put an arm around Lee's shoulders. "I am a man of many mysteries and talents," he agreed.

"Aw, how cute." Amy whipped out her cell phone, but Lee made a sound in his throat.

"No photos from the press," he said, and then he started leading Tony away.

Tony called over his shoulder, "You'll have to talk to his agent first!" and then they were giggling like schoolboys while Amy flipped them the bird and snapped a photo anyway.

Tony eyed the smoking wreckage of the camera. "I feel like I should say some final words," he said, still tipsy on laughter and happiness. "Farewell evil camera, we barely knew thee — but you were way too creepy and obsessed with our personal lives to exist."

"Where _did_ CB get it from anyway?" Lee asked.

"We'll never know," Tony said solemnly.

 

* * *

 

(Lee gave his first interview a week later, to Out Magazine. He showed up dressed in ripped jeans and a black t-shirt, and when he arrived, he smiled at everyone like the heartbreaker he was. The reporter sat up straighter, notebook at the ready, and Tony followed Lee to the two chairs that had been set up for them. A camera went off from the direction of the photographer; there was a bright light. Tony winced.

But Lee knew how to do this, Lee was born to do this, Lee radiated casual comfort and easy charm.

"So I think we all know why we're here," Lee said, "and I think there's been some scandal with how I got here, but now that we _are_ here, I just want to say..." He reached over and took Tony's hand. "Hey guys. This is my boyfriend.")

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Camera, Camera (The Actor's Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536326) by [Mara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara/pseuds/Mara)




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